Week 1 of 10 – Gained 3 Pounds

Some of you already know that I decided to jump into the public mix and join this years 10in10 challenge, essentially the Biggest Loser without the threat of getting kicked off the show and without the ability to win a lot of money. This community/challenge was started by our Twitter and podcasting friend Nigel. The objective is really simple. Lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks.

On Monday January 4th, we all weighed ourselves and posted our weights on a Google Docs spreadsheet. I weighed in at the gym just before working out. I came in at a NFL Quarterback svelte 216.5 lbs, except that I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the NFL Quarterback fraternity. Blacklisted from that as well. I wasn’t surprised by the 216.5 weight; after all, it isn’t a good or a bad number, it’s just a number, a benchmark from which to measure performance and change. Now with an outcome goal of 10 pounds in 10 weeks firmly in place, I set out to develop the process goals that if implemented would positively affect that number. Note: I acknowledge that weight management is materially affected by stress, emotions and psychology, those elements that fall into the Spiritual, Mental and Emotional dimensions of human performance, however the process goals I chose for this endeavor are exclusive to the Physical dimension, as I felt the physical foundation needed to be solidified first or the desired accomplishments in the other dimensions would equally fail. I placed these Physical process goals into the following categories:

• Caloric Intake/Nutrition
• Caloric Expenditure/Positive Stress
• Recovery/Adaptation

How’d I do? During week 1, I succeeded in gaining three pounds and am now up to 219.5. So why am I not freaking out? Well, for a couple of reasons. The first is that I was on meds for my head cold when I did my initial weigh in which may have had me dehydrated aqnd therefore lighter than I really am. Case in point is that I did my weigh in yesterday before my workout and came up with 219.5. I did another weigh in after my workout and weighed in at 215.5, that’s a 4 pound swing in under two hours, all of it related to hydration. But being conservative, I’ll use the observation from before the workout and will hope to see improvement in the coming weeks from doing one thing, executing ruthlessly on the process goals I’ve set out for myself.

Below is my report card from the past week. I use three levels of performance measures. Less then Expected, Met Expectations and Exceeded Expectations. It doesn’t make much sense to get more granular than that, although I recognize that there are valid reasons for gradation. Overall, for week 1 of 10 I gave myself a self assessment of Met Expectations, a good start with plenty of room for improvement.

Report Card – Week 1

Caloric Intake/Nutrition = Below Expectations

Portion size: Clearly I still fall into the trappings of being a child of depression parents and still feel the need to clean my plate

Eat Healthy Breakfast: For the most part I now eat cottage cheese for breakfast which also helps with the eat protein first process goal

Eat light every three hours: Not sure I’m eating light and trying to eat regularly but not exactly hitting the every three hour mark

Avoid junk food and sugar: I’ve been off chocolate since January 1st, which is my biggest sugar vice, but I’m still eating too much bread and carbs

Eat protein first: Starts of really well with breakfast but I know I ate Mexican a few times and did fall into the trappings of the chips on the table

Stop eating 60 mins. before going to sleep: Just failed at this one.

Caloric Expenditure/Postive Stress = Met Expectations

Hit the gym early: Been going to gym but usually around lunch time, not first thing in the morning as I’d planned on doing. Lots of good excuses but no matter, I still haven’t been getting it done. I also missed two days this week due to other commitments.

Min 45 mins of Cardio: I pulled the muscle in my left calf on Tuesday on the treadmill but didn’t let it deter me. I quickly switched to more hours on the bike and walking steep inclines on the treadmill to keep up the routine. Would have been a higher grade but I missed Monday and Sunday due to other commitments.

Resistance training: Lifted weights Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for a total of three days this week. Also given that Wednesday was the first time I’d done squats and lunges in ages, it took me until Saturday to recover functional ability in my ass and hamstrings again.

Recovery/Adaptation = Met Expectations

Sleep min of 7 hours per night: For the most part I’m getting more sleep now than I ordinarily do, but I still need to work on reducing the negative stress in my day to day life. Obviously my career has a lot to do with this at the moment. I still need to do a lot more on this front.

Now it’s on to do even better in week two. Best of luck to all of my friends who are engaged in pursuing their own 10 in 10 objectives. Wishing you all continued success.